Having an impactful digital presence is essential regardless of the products or services you want to promote. With that, business owners need to develop a professional website to help them introduce their brands to their ideal customers and potential visitors. They may be able to gain the trust of these online users as they use this avenue to improve their reputation, affecting their purchasing decision. 

As these entrepreneurs create a website, they need to design this platform so they can form a positive impression on their visitors by having a good brand perception. If you're unsure where to start, click here for more info on how hiring a professional can elevate your website's design. This positive perception is crucial because once visitors start perceiving your brand positively, they are more likely to stay on your pages for a longer period or proceed to checkout. In turn, these companies will sustain the interest of their leads, which results in a higher conversion rate while providing an excellent user experience. 

This article will walk you through the nine most common mistakes to avoid when designing your first website. 

• Cluttered Page Design 

A cluttered website has overly-preoccupied visual elements and too many disorganized pages that don't have a relevant context to the brand. This page might have too many ads or distracting navigation menus that will increase cognitive load, and visitors might not be able to focus on essential details. As a result, this experience can lead to poor user experience (UX), which doesn't encourage prospects to return to the site and can hamper conversion rates. 

To get rid of a cluttered page design, you have to analyze which elements don't contribute to the purpose of your campaigns by considering what you're selling. After that, you must eliminate redundant links and control the number of fonts and colors to help your visitors focus on the main page content. Then, you need to choose and implement a luxury website design with attractive graphics to increase the perceived status of your brand to turn your prospects into loyal consumers. 

• Disregarding Mobile-Responsiveness 

A mobile-responsive website design allows entrepreneurs to deliver their content like videos, images, and links to all types of online users. That means the vital information about the company is easily accessible across multiple channels on any mobile device, especially on tablets and smartphones. However, some traditional web designers might fail to optimize the mobile responsiveness of their pages, which might lose the interest of their customers who want to explore their website using their phones. 

Instead of disregarding the mobile-friendliness of your website, you have to create a mobile-friendly one to sustain your prospects. With that, you need to keep your web design as straightforward as possible while ensuring visitors can easily find specific information within the web pages. Then, you must use large font sizes and avoid using the latest fonts so the online users won't have to wait for their device to install newer ones. 

• Plagiarized Content 

Plagiarism is using another blogger's output and creativity as their own without referencing the original content and asking for consent. Unfortunately, most first-time website owners don't check the uniqueness of their blogs twice before publishing them to their pages and making them available to the public. As a result, this practice can affect their search engine rankings and damage the reputation of their brands as they deal with legal consequences. 

Before avoiding plagiarizing ideas for new topics, you must put your previously written blogs on advanced plagiarism checking tools. After that, you may start writing another piece of content by paraphrasing it and crediting the original writer by citing their work in your list of references. If you can't avoid this practice, you should consider outsourcing a professional ghostwriter who can produce unique blogs for your website. 

• Wrong CTA Placement 

A call-to-action (CTA) on web pages is an element that provides the users with clear directions to urge them to take action. This component may encourage visitors to subscribe to their email newsletter, explore new offers, or call their sales representative for more product information. Unfortunately, most first-time web designers often mistake placing these icons on the wrong site areas, which often get missed by the audience and cause the company to lose prospective buyers. 

You must place the initial CTA below the header to avoid this mistake. Then, you need to encourage a sense of urgency by creating a statement below the primary CTA and using guiding signs that will lead them to the CTA. For those who aren't ready to check out, you can position a secondary CTA like 'See Menu,' 'Learn More,' or 'Subscribe To Email List' to encourage them to stay in contact with your brand. 

• Slow Loading Pages 

Website speed is essential because a browser can efficiently load functional pages from a respective site. When a page can fully show the entire content within a few seconds, this positive experience will instantly create a good perception for the visitors that the company is professional. Inversely, slow-loading pages are likely to annoy most impatient users, which might force them to close the tab and move on with their online browsing activities. 

To prevent slow-loading pages, you must disregard huge flash content to boost your website's speed. In addition, you should consider implementing hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) caching that will enable you to store regularly used data points inside a cached memory tool. After that, you have to eliminate unnecessary elements like irrelevant comments, excessive white spaces, empty new lines, and inline stylings to compress the code and reduce the overall load time of your page. 

• Low-Quality Images 

High-quality photos within online platforms are essential because they can help improve brand awareness. When website owners continue to publish top-tier images on their website, they encourage their visitors to share their content on multiple social media channels. As a result, they will reach more qualified prospective clients while enabling active audience engagement. 

While publishing high-quality images is vital in boosting a brand's digital presence, most inexperienced web designers often ignore this strategy. In turn, they might slow down the whole page, which irritates visitors and impacts the ranking of their pages on search engine results pages (SERPs). Luckily, you can avoid this mistake by investing in high-quality cameras or considering outsourcing the professional services of an expert photographer. 

• Hidden Navigation 

Web navigation is a set of interface elements that allow online users to locate specific information as they browse the site. A website with a transparent navigation system will have a readily accessible road map to guide visitors to particular pages to receive immediate details about the brand. With that, this component will build a remarkable user experience, which urges them to continue browsing your pages and bring more loyalty to the company. 

While having straightforward navigation is vital in guiding users within a website, some untrained web designers unconsciously hide this element. This mistake results in dissatisfied visitors, which boosts bounce rates, impacts organic website traffic, and reduces rankings in the SERPs. Therefore, you should make hypertext obvious, optimize your navigation bar, keep sidebars separate, and put this element on the sidebar, header, or footer so online users can easily find the details they need. 

• Outdated Contact Details 

In today's technologically advanced age, modern consumers are cautious before having transactions with online brands. Instead of giving away their confidential data right away, they need to receive assurance that the products and services they’re about to purchase are effective and will arrive at a certain period. However, digital sellers often fail to regularly update their contact information, limiting their opportunities to increase sales by pushing away interested buyers. 

To avoid this costly, ineffective mistake, you must frequently update your website's necessary contact information. For instance, if you change the number of your customer service team, you need to replace the last details with a new one. Similarly, you should do the same once you switch to a different business address or expand into a new location so your customers can find your stores. 

• Ignoring Analytics 

Web analytics is the activity of evaluating the actions of online users within a page, which helps site owners measure their campaigns' performance. As they collect this vital data, they will receive insights into their visitors and why their leads aren't purchasing their products and services. After assessing this information, they can improve the promotional initiatives within their website and become more resonant with their prospects to encourage sale transactions. 

While these analytics are vital in reviewing the productivity of a website, most first-time web designers often ignore these elements. As a result, they continue to produce irrelevant marketing content on their pages without receiving positive reactions from their visitors and increasing bounce rates. To prevent this mistake, you must regularly monitor your web insights using a credible analytics platform and analyze traffic on a line graph that includes your sales trends and conversion rates. 

Key Takeaway 

No matter what industry you’re operating in, you must create an impactful digital presence for your brand to reach your ideal customers by developing a professional website. However, you must avoid these nine common mistakes site owners make in designing their pages for the first time. Once you do, you can establish an effective site that resonates well with the preferences of your target audience, which urges them to support your company by purchasing your offerings.